Studies After—

This gallery is comprised of intentional recreations of paintings and illustrations by artists Matthew Lau deeply admired, labeled as “Study after—.” Drawn especially to cubist traditions, art deco style, and the work of queer artists across generations, Matthew taught himself to paint through imitation, revisiting specific images not to claim them, but to understand them. For Matthew, the joy was always in the act of creating, wherever that might lead. He loved approaching art much like the building of a sand castle: the meaning lay in the making, not in the permanence of what was created.

Matthew did not sign these paintings. This absence was deliberate. He did not view these works as objects of ownership or authorship, but as studies—acts of learning, homage, and devotion. To sign them would have suggested a claim he never sought to make. Instead, the paintings remain open, honest records of process rather than possession. Displayed below is a reproduction of Matthew’s signature, taken from a headshot he signed in life. Though he chose not to place his name on these paintings, it belongs with them here—recognizing the care, intention, and lineage that shaped this collection.

Franz Marc (1880–1916) was a German Expressionist painter and a founding member of the avant-garde group Der Blaue Reiter. Renowned for his vivid use of color and stylized animal imagery, Marc sought to express spiritual truths and emotional states through simplified forms and bold palettes. His iconic works—featuring horses, deer, and other creatures rendered in luminous blues, reds, and yellows—combine abstraction with a deep sympathy for nature. Marc’s career was cut short when he was killed in World War I, but his innovative approach to color, form, and symbolism left a lasting influence on modern art.

Franz Marc Studies

Polyptych Study after Franz Marc, Stables (Stallungen)

Oil on canvas
24 x 48 (made up of eight 12 x 12 canvases)

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni (A1-B1) and Elyse Demaray & Jim Palmieri, VA (B2-B4)

Study after Franz Marc, The Foxes (Die Füchse)

Oil on canvas
24 x 36

Collection of Bette Lynn Dickinson, MI

Richard Taddei is a New York–born painter whose five-decade career bridges classical tradition and queer contemporary vision. Drawing inspiration from 17th-century Venetian masters, he combines masterful trompe-l’œil, geometric play, and luminous light to create fragmented, dreamlike compositions that explore heroism, desire, and vulnerability. Renowned for his sensual male nudes and psychologically charged imagery, Taddei’s work examines savior archetypes and the tension between safety and longing—earning him a lasting place in the canon of queer art.

Richard Taddei Studies

Study after Richard Taddei, The Dreamer

Acrylic on paper
13 x 13

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni

Study after Richard Taddei, River God

Acrylic on paper
13 x 13

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni

Study after Richard Taddei, Gargoyle

Acrylic on canvas
35 x 35

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni

Lynnie Z Study

Lynnie Z’s style is a distinctive one, where a bold bright colour palette is used to great effect in the playful charismatic characters she creates. The development of these characters is the driving force of her work; producing mysterious, seductive creatures and powerful femme fatales. Women are mostly the subject of her pieces which she brings to life using ink, paint and paint pens. By working spontaneously the personalities evolve naturally into striking and engaging images which both shock and amuse, but always stimulate the eye.

Triptych Study after Lynnie Z, illustration for The New York Times

Acrylic on paper and canvas
12 x 12 each

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni

Original artwork from the New York Times article “What Biracial People Know” (published March 4, 2017) by Moises Velasquez-Manoff.

Duncan Grant (1885–1978) was a pioneering British painter and decorative artist best known as a central member of the Bloomsbury Group. Blending Post-Impressionist color with a distinctly modern sensibility, Grant moved fluidly between fine and applied arts—creating luminous portraits, intimate domestic scenes, and bold decorative schemes. His work celebrated beauty, personal freedom, and queer identity at a time when such openness was rare, leaving a lasting mark on 20th-century British art through both canvas and interior design.

Duncan Grant Study

Study after Duncan Grant, Bathing

Oil on canvas
48 x 24

Collection of Lau Studio Alumni

Bathing once formed part of a decorative scheme completed by six artists for a student dining hall at Borough Polytechnic, London. The overall theme was ‘London on holiday’. Duncan Grant produced two of the seven murals and, while his colleagues all celebrated family-centred activities, his designs focus on athletic male bodies. In his piece Football, he clearly enjoyed imagining skintight outfits to hug every bulging contour of his players. In Bathing, the clothes come off.

Nude outdoor bathing is now a Hollywood cliché for adolescent rebellion, but it was standard for men until the nineteenth century and survived well into the next. It inspired countless softly homoerotic scenes painted near the turn of the century across Europe and America. Hyde Park’s Serpentine, the setting here, was a men-only swimming spot until the 1930s and nude bathing was still common then. Naked men brought admirers. The Serpentine was on the unofficial gay sightseeing list, even if park regulations attempted to bar voyeurs from the lido.

Adept at picking up male lovers, Grant understood the gay viewpoint he was implicitly presenting. He underlines his message with a set of poses that are almost scandalously suggestive. (Imagine the water gone for a moment!) Perhaps it’s no surprise that one Edwardian hack, writing in the National Review, condemned the corrupting influence the dining hall murals would have on young students.

This text is an extract from A Queer Little History of Art, written by Alex Pilcher.

Michelangelo Studies

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was one of the defining geniuses of the Italian Renaissance, excelling as a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. Renowned for his monumental works—including the David, the Pietà, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—Michelangelo infused the human form with unprecedented power, anatomical precision, and spiritual intensity. His art unites physical beauty with profound emotional and theological depth, shaping Western art for centuries and establishing an enduring ideal of heroic expression.

Study after Michelangelo, The Delphic Sibyl

Oil on canvas
30 x 24

Collection of Melissa Lau Jager, MI

Study after Michelangelo, The Libyan Sibyl

Oil on canvas
30 x 24

Collection of Bette Lynn Dickinson, MI

Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980) was the leading traditional easel painter of the Art Deco movement. Influenced by Italian Renaissance masters, compared to a modern-day Ingres, and shaped by softened post-Cubist abstraction, she developed a sleek, stylized portrait style. Drawing on elite social circles, she painted glamorous, cosmopolitan figures that defined the era’s luxury. Beneath the polished surface, her work expressed her bi self-identity and liberated female sexuality, capturing the spirit of the interwar golden age.